The European Union Public License (hereinafter “EUPL”) is an open-source license approved by the European Commission in 2007, which was specifically designed to be adapted to the European Union’s regulatory framework.
Why was it necessary?
Free software/open-source licenses originated in the United States; therefore, common law has influenced the drafting of the earliest open-source licenses and those that were subsequently developed. As a result, the interpretation and application of the provisions of these licenses under continental European copyright law can be problematic in some cases.
For example, one of the most significant differences between these two systems is that U.S. copyright law provides for the transfer of all rights held by the owner of a work to a third party, whereas continental copyright law does not allow for the transfer of moral rights in the work, which are inherent to the author and inalienable.
In late 2004, the European Commission issued a study on open-source licenses for software developed by the Commission itself, in which it noted that the licenses in place at that time did not meet certain requirements mandated for European institutions. Specifically, the contentious issues related to: a lack of specification regarding applicable law and jurisdiction; warranties and limitations of liability; terminology regarding copyright that was not adapted to European practice; and legal validity in different languages.
That is why, despite the large number of open-source licenses available (more than 300), the European Commission could not find a license that perfectly suited the projects it wanted to carry out and decided to draft the EUPL. The first version was published in 2007, and in 2009 the Open Source Initiative (OSI) certified it as an “open source” license for complying with its principles.
The latest version of the EUPL, version 1.2, was updated by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2017/863 of May 18, 2017, which is available via this link.
Clickheretoview the full document on the open-source license.
Author: Agustín Alguacil